


New Years Plans

by anonstarbuck



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5606278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonstarbuck/pseuds/anonstarbuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder sits at his house alone for New Years Eve</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Years Plans

When Mulder had studied her face and watched her grin at the ball dropping on the screen, it would never have occurred to him at the time to refer to his subsequent leaning in as “taking the plunge” as Byers had put it once.  
  
The word “plunge” comes from the Old French “ _plungier_ ” which means to thrust down. He didn’t like the connotation of the word. “Plunge” reminded him of plunder, pollute, pillage, plotted.  
  
He’d disliked words containing the letters “P” and “L” ever since he was a child. At first, he believed this to be a pet peeve about their sonority, an aversion against plosives disrupting his desire for quietude. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that for the following months after Samantha’s abduction, he had developed a slight stutter, exacerbated by his father’s drinking, his mother’s silence, their combined disappointment in him and their numb, empty eyes. As a child he had stared at his lanky reflection in the bathroom mirror and would practice saying “platitudes, pleasantries, polite, plague, plank” until his tongue would run over them smoothly, training to talk in school again without embarrassing himself.   
  
No. When he had finally kissed her, he wasn’t following an impulse (ugh, that word), he had made a decision. His movement had been triggered by the same fuel that triggered most of his movements: “I wonder.”  
  
Old English, Old High German, “ _wundrian_ ”, “ _wundern_ ”. The first  “to admire, make wonderful, to magnify.” The second, “to entertain doubt or curiosity.” He had looked at her profile, cut from marble, the bruises somehow beautiful on her neck. She had been shifting her weight slightly, like she did when she was running on empty, unconsciously urging her body onward. He magnified, he admired.  He had entertained his doubts and curiosity for too long. He decided.  
  
When he kissed her he had meant only to brush against her lips but her face had opened up to him and he had remained. He knows now that after that first New Years kiss, he never really left. Now he sits on his old couch at that unremarkable house without her, and he realises that over their years together she has given him his words back. He has stopped sneering at “platitudes, pleasantries, polite” and finds himself getting hard with the sound of plums, lips, opaline, pillow, lapping, please.

 _Please, Mulder, please.”_  
  
He stiffens at the memory of her fingers pulling at his hair. It is difficult to hate that particular blend of consonants when they've been panted into your mouth like a prayer.   
  
The TV is on mute, there is one minute left until the new year. The only sound is the clink of ice in his whiskey, until it isn’t. Until the only other sound is a car approaching, stopping. An engine being killed. The sound of his breath catching. He can see her in his mind’s eye, gripping the steering wheel, white-knuckled, trying to steel her resolve, looking up at the orange glow emanating from the house. He is too nervous to inhale. A car door. The crunch of gravel. Familiar footsteps. A pause.  
  
_Please, Scully. Please._

  
The sound of a key at the door.


End file.
